Mean old Santa Claus didn’t bring you that longed for train set? Dab away those understandable tears and download the demo of 3D Train Studio V9. Deutschland’s answer to Rolling Line has just pulled into Steam Central, coupled to an improbably generous trial.
Not only does the demo showcase the game’s idiot-proof tracklaying and scenery construction sides, it lets you download and operate hundreds of elaborate user-made layouts.
3D Train Studio has been entertaining and evolving for around a decade, so the community has had plenty of time to craft fabulous miniatur wunderlands. Amongst available prefabs, are nostalgic recreations of classic Märklin, Rivarossi, and Arnold Rapido layouts, and lavish masterpieces such as ‘From the Winterburg to the Sommerloch’ and ‘Rheintal’.
Although dominated by German content at the moment, 3D Train Studio teems with user-made rolling stock and scenery so, assuming creative British modellers see its potential, it could eventually fill the gaping hole left by the cruelly discontinued Hornby Virtual Railway.
For some reason I’m always a sucker for the “tiny-tabletop” aesthetic in videogames. This looks like a lovely try.
I’m still waiting for a game that lets me build transit-lines and city blocks, then conduct a dashing heist or train robbery in the space I’ve just built…